#art #ENVISIONTheLifeCube #blackrockcity #artprojectatburningman #artburningman #artatburningman

Facebook’s New Advertising Strategy Is Brilliant and Unexpected October 03, 2011 by Todd Wasserman Facebook and Google get compared a lot these days, but with its new advertising strategy, Facebook is adapting Google’s ad strategy to its social media. Improving advertising on the popular social network is not a new or particularly innovative idea. Still the transition from advertising as a message-delivering medium to a platform for social sharing is a radical departure for Facebook. It could be the Facebook advertising solution that turns advertising partners (brands) into better social media communicators and gets Facebook members to start recommending and sharing advertisers as much as they do they latest cat video. As for the Google comparison. Recall that in the early days, Google had a choice: Take money from advertisers for higher search rankings or ignore such offers and focus on making its search engine the best it could be. Google at first didn’t know how it would make money. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin figured that if they built a better mousetrap, the money would eventually flow. And it did. Like Google, Facebook didn’t invent a category, it refined it. Friendster and MySpace predated Facebook just like Yahoo and Alta Vista came before Google. Like Google, Facebook figured that if it got enough people on board and continually improved its social network, eventually it would figure out a way to make money. Facebook’s overtures at first were clumsy. Beacon, the advertising platform Facebook introduced in 2007, informed all your friends when you made potentially embarrassing purchases or rentals on Blockbuster and other retail partners — and was eventually shuttered. Since then, Facebook seems content cashing in on its huge user base via display advertising. SEE ALSO: The History of Advertising on Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC] http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/facebook-advertising-infographic/ Now, however, Facebook’s ad strategy is becoming clear. And it’s not only brilliant, it’s unexpected. Facebook’s strategy, like Google’s, is to not only improve its network and experience, but improve the advertising as well. Now, that’s not so clever, admittedly. The really interesting part is the way Facebook plans to improve it: by making brand Pages better. Why? Facebook doesn’t make a dime on any of the Pages set up by advertisers. As a marketer, you could do quite well for yourself by running a brand Page and never buying a single ad. But you could only do so well. The reason you will have to buy ads on Facebook goes to the heart of why you need to advertise in the first place. A few years ago, I wrote a story about the marketing for Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith the last movie (by release date, not chronologically) in the Star Wars franchise. I was genuinely baffled as to why Lucasfilm was putting such a heavy advertising push behind the movie. I mean, after all, didn’t everyone who cared already know that the movie was coming out? Jim Ward, Lucasfilm’s vice president of marketing at the time, though, told me the stakes were huge for that movie. If the studio did absolutely no advertising, it would likely lose $110 million or so in box office returns. “What we need to do is go beyond the core audience, not only from a box office perspective but from a brand-management perspective,” he told me at the time. In other words: You don’t need to let Star Wars fans know that a Star Wars movie is coming out, but you do need to target all those millions of people who are on the fence about Star Wars or are too young to remember it. The same is true for any brand that really wants to grow. You will get only so far keeping your base happy. What you need to do is reach beyond them. It turns out that approaching friends of that base may be the best way to do this. Why? Think back to the last time a friend convinced you to take a flyer on a new product or maybe made you think of an old brand in a new way. For instance, I have a friend who is a total Mac-head who surprised me last year when he said that Windows 7 was as good as the Mac OS. Movies are another good example. Have you ever written off a new movie only to be completely turned around when a friend told you it was actually really good? (Of course, this cuts the other way, too.) That’s the thinking behind two new announcements Facebook is making this week. One is a new ad unit. The other is a set of metrics that will help administrators create better brand Pages. The combination of the two reveals where Facebook’s thinking is going. Facebook is putting pressure on advertisers to create better content for their brand Pages. If they do, those brands will have a better chance of winning over friends of fans either by advertising or by creating something viral. It’s a cycle that has the potential to redefine the way we interact with brands. From now on, brands will be friends or friends of friends rather than spammers trying to bombard your consciousness. Social media is still new, but so was search once. While figuring out how to make money off of search seems obvious in retrospect, it clearly wasn’t at the time. In the same way, someday we’ll look back at how Facebook invented social media advertising and wonder why no one thought of it sooner. posted by a friend from her Washington Post Reader, original source Mashable (I refused to subscribe to the App on Facebook). #myspace #starwars #google #Twitter #socialmedia #brand #Facebook #beacon #socialmedia #friendster #branding #advertising

Hello Cube-ists, We launched a campaign to raise the last $15,000 needed to make the Cube happen in Downtown Las Vegas. In the first two days, we have raised over $2,500. Whether $1 or $1,000, any donation is greatly appreciated and shows support for the arts in the Las Vegas community. Please take a moment to see what we are creating at 9th and Fremont http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/life-cube-project-downtown-las-vegas Additional Highlights: Schools: Last week we spoke to 440 students at a local elementary school and it was a magical moment. Because of the impact it had on the kids, I have been asked to speak to another 1000 kids at various schools around town. We are also gifting cubes to schools, and meeting with as many students as possible to share the story of the project and speak about goal-setting. If you have any connections with teachers or parents in Las Vegas, please pass on my contact info. We will be working on Cubes for schools this weekend. Concrete slab poured this week. We have a canvas for the first art that wants to go on to the Cube. The slab will have pillars and posts and walls, but what a beautiful space. If interested, contact Caitlyn who is coordinating all artists. We also have an entire lot to be covered with chalk drawings.LifeCubeArtist@gmail.com We have lumber! Over 22,000 pounds of wood was delivered to the site. It is beginning to come together. We are building satellite cubes for schools. We have over 60 planned, and could use help. Stop by the site at Fremont and 9th. We should be on site from 10:30 AM – 8 PM every day. Come and help! Cube Build Schedule: Starting this Monday, we are building columns and walls, if you have the time, energy, and want to have some fun – come help. http://www.lifecubeproject.com/volunteer If you sign-up we will try and provide updates as they happen. Canvas is here! We are cutting canvas for over 500 artists to be able to create a huge tapestry wall. This is free canvas for anyone wanting to help contribute art for this mosaic. Details on pick-up locations will be coming soon. If you want to help with cutting or distribution, emailLifeCubeArtist@gmail.comand please sign up at http://www.lifecubeproject.com/volunteer Make Cube signs! Another artist opportunity. We have wood that was donated. If you want to make a “Life Cube” sign, come to the site. HELP! We need people with 2 hands and a smile. This is a community art installation. Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part. Social Media: If you’re on Facebook, please like atwww.facebook.com/thelifecube . You can also follow us at twitter, @thelifecube and see progress of the cube on Instagram @lifecubeproject. If you post about The Life Cube Project, which we hope you do, please tag #lifecube. Huge gratitude for your help and support. scotte #art #community #donations #project #dreams #nevada #LasVegas #lifecube #vegas #manifest #wishes #volunteer #downtown #BurningMan

#TheLifeCube #burningmanburningman #artatburningman #skeeter #BM2012 #burningman2012 #lifecube #artatburningman #bm2011 #burningman2011

Could it be that Dimestore Media has cracked the code on the ability to measure brand awareness & message recall?  I found this article in the Wall Street Journal by Emily Steel very interesting. Web vs. TV: Research Aims To Gauge Ads Goals Include Finding Optimal Mix Of Media and Long-Term Results Emily Steel, WSJ March 19, 2008; Page B3 When marketers buy ads on the Web, they can track everything from the number of clicks an ad receives from a certain ZIP Code to how long a person watches a video clip on a specific site. But while those metrics help marketers gauge how successfully online ads lead to purchases in the short term, they don’t reveal how the ads affect a brand’s image over longer periods. And they don’t help marketers compare an online ad’s impact with that of a television ad. Now, as a growing number of big marketers allocate as much as 20% of their ad budgets to online marketing — often at the expense of TV — they are increasingly interested in those questions. And ad-research firms are taking steps to supply answers. IAG Research, which uses online polling to measure how well TV viewers remember commercials, is the latest firm to do so. IAG is adding questions about Internet ads to its surveys, acting at the request of longtime client Toyota Motor and several others. Toyota has been putting more of its ad budget into online in the past couple of years and wanted to compare how the ads did compared with TV spots. "We wanted to be able to have a consistent measurement tool to really start judging the Internet compared to TV," says Kim McCullough, Toyota’s corporate manager of marketing communications. She says Toyota is trying to understand questions like "What is the optimal mix between TV and the Internet? Where are their synergies?" Measuring the effectiveness of any ad is fraught with difficulties. Advertisers have long complained about the lack of hard data on how well TV ads work. Nevertheless, firms like IAG, as well as rivals including ARSgroup and TNS Media, have come up with various ways to give marketers some idea of how their ads do. IAG, whose clients include American Express, Procter & Gamble and major TV networks in addition to Toyota, conducts online surveys using a group of more than two million consumers, who visit a Web site called RewardTV.com to answer questions about TV shows they watch. In the midst of the questions, IAG sprinkles in questions about the ads that appeared during the TV program. IAG now will include questions about Internet ads in the surveys. By participating, panelists earn points that they can redeem for prizes and also have the chance to win bigger items, such as $10,000 in cash or three years of free gas. But measuring Web ads is a trickier business than measuring their TV counterparts. The use of targeted ad sales means that two people visiting the same Web site aren’t likely to see the same ads. IAG compensates for that in its surveys, placing "cookies," or small pieces of tracking data, on panelists’ hard drives so its system knows when panelists are exposed to an ad. Toyota is the first advertiser to use IAG’s new Web-measurement tools and has yet to receive any data. IAG is measuring all kinds of Web ads, from banner ads to video spots and sponsorships. IAG Co-Chief Executive Alan Gould predicts that standard banner advertising might prove to be less effective than previously thought. He notes IAG’s data show that many TV ads don’t work. "The same thing will happen with the Internet," he says. Other companies have their own tools to track online ads against traditional media. Market-research firm TNS Media recently put together a new unit that links its traditional and digital media research groups. The goal is to be able to track ads and consumer behavior across all media. ARSgroup, which has done advertising research for 30 years, has started testing a way to help advertisers measure how engaging their ads are across a number of outlets, including the Web, TV and in movie theaters. ARSgroup assembles groups of panelists to test different elements of an ad campaign before its launch. Despite all of the tools designed to measure ads, some marketers caution against putting too much value in the results. "Short of somehow being able to have a chip in my brain, I’m not sure how you could know what it was that really got me to make a purchase," says Bruce Haggerty, directory of marketing research at Nestlé USA, a unit of Swiss food giant Nestlé. Write to Emily Steel at emily.steel@wsj.com

Hey folks — Hope you are all having a super fantastic summer.  Burning Man is less than 30 days away!  Wahooooo!  The pre-playa construction crew is building away in South Lake Tahoe.  Thanks and a big shout-out to all those who have been working to help with the construction, the folks that have donated materials, time, labor, and ideas… YOU GUYS ROCK! It would be greatly appreciated if anyone in the area can join Gordy AND CREW on Tuesday nights.  We have lots of jobs from painting to nailing, to assembly and a whole bunch of other stuff that needs to be done.  The exterior design is complete and with a few last minute changes, it will be off to the printer.  I think it is AMAZING!  Julio, my graphic artist in North Dakota, has captured the creativity and vision that I was looking for.  I was going to post the designs, but think it better to surprise you all on the playa..and for those not going, you can see the pics when we get back! We need to verify the playa construction team count so there is no mistake with regard to who needs to have an early admin pass. THIS IS IMPORTANT.  If you would, please email me directly at thelifecube@gmail.com with the words “EARLY ADMIN PASS NEEDED” in the subject. I will be in S. Lake Tahoe to help with the final pre-playa construction.  I’m going to leave with a small number of people to deliver materials and get all the final approvals and stuff from the ARTery on Aug 23.  People that are coming to help with playa construction should plan on coming on the 24th. Last year I purchased a bike in Tahoe from a guy close to Niobe.  If anyone knows of someone with a cheap but functional bike — please let me know.  BTW, we have 3 trucks heading to the playa (one of which I will be keeping).  If you need anything brought out — let me know.  I’m happy to help and should have the room to accommodate some extra stuff. One final note:  We have raised over $5,000 on kickstarter to date.   Donations in any amounts will increase the number of contributors and will be hugely appreciated.  And if you have not seen the video — please check it out — you may see some friendly faces from last year. Click here to see The Life Cube video on kickstarter Thanks again for all your support.  Look forward to seeing you all on the playa. With love, skeeter #BurningMan #thelifecubeupdate

San Diego – Christopher Cunningham of LeadFusion took me to this unbelievable sushi joint in SD. I will need to check Zagats, look on Web, or call Christopher for more details on the history and ownership of this super fine sushi rest! Not since outside the fishmarket in Japan have I enjoyed such a fantastic and unusual sushi meal. Yes, this even incudes the 2 times I ate at Masa in Time Warner Center in NYC. Among other interesting dishes, I ate cod sperm, live lobster (tail), which was later turned into a soup. Scott rates this – ‘Top stars’ = worth a special trip just to go to this restaurant. You need to access the special menu generally reserved for the Japanese execs coming to see the brother of the owner.

Quote Another movie to see Keeping Up With the Steins. A suggestion by Madeleine of a totally disfunctional family planning their sons Bar Mitvah. Definitely worth checking out. Reminds me of Pieces of April, another film I very much enjoyed.

This is a terrific clip from listening to podcasts on my IPOD that Natasha gave me for my birthday.  Anne Sweeney is President of Disney ABC Televison Group. This clip is from the American Association of Advertising Agencies.  This is what Dimestore Media is all about! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMsomuoxhhU

Started a group on Facebook called I miss Alan Greenspan.

Big controversy: Wikipedia posting the Rorschach series of 10 inkblot plates & most common responses. If crazy, memorize ans.  Below are the 10 plates so you can study just in case.  Article I found this was NYT July 29.  The inkblots were posted on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test)  — does this mean that crazy people can study how to be sane, or sane people can pretend to be crazy?

Saw this last year, and thought I had posted a link.  Could not find it – so here it is —was discussing with Peter who is going to buy the 2010 FORD Mustang Shelby 500+ horsepower  http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1818768&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1 Father’s Day from Serendipity Films on Vimeo.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did